From director Jonathan Butterell and inspired by true events, the musical dramedy Everybody’s Talking About Jamie follows Jamie New (newcomer Max Harwood, who gives a fabulously standout performance), a teenager in a blue collar English town who dreams of a big and showy life as a fierce drag queen. Although not everyone is so quick to embrace Jamie for who he is, he does have the support of his best friend Pritti (Lauren Patel) and his mom (Sarah Lancashire), as well as local drag legend Miss Loco Chanelle (Richard E. Grant) who helps him understand the freedom in truly expressing his voice.

During this 1-on-1 interview with Collider, Grant talked about why Everybody’s Talking About Jamie was such a beguiling project, why he felt so connected to this story, how everyone on set just fell in love with the film’s lead Harwood, and why it took a small village to make his drag transformation successful. He also talked about how cool it is to get to be a part of both the Star Wars universe and the Marvel universe, the one good thing that came out of his time making Hudson Hawk, and his experience on the upcoming Jane Austen film Persuasion.

Collider: I loved this film and thought it was delightful. This is a project that’s made up of a first-time film director, first-time screenwriter and lyricist, first-time composer, and first-time lead actor. What sold you on the fact that they could pull off the vision for this film?

RICHARD E. GRANT: I had seen the documentary about Jamie New, who it’s based on, on the BBC about five years ago, and knew that it had become a big hit musical. And then, I read the script version, which I think is slightly different from the stage show, which I’ve never seen, and has different music. Because Jonathan Butterell, who had created the show, was so deeply committed to it and knows every emotional beat and every variation of everything, his passion for the story and his commitment to it and how it resonates with his own life stood out to me. Plus, everybody being new means that you’re not going to a job where people are jaded and tired out and phoning it in. Everybody’s like a virgin, for the very first time. You get enormous energy from that. The first film that I was ever in, in 1986, was Withnail & I, was a first-time writer/director, I had never done a movie, and the other actors had done parts on movies or TV, but nothing of any great size or substance. I remember that so clearly, that feeling of, you’ve got your gang together and it’s you against the world and you’re gonna try to get everything you’re so passionate about onto the screen. That’s very beguiling. It’s very rare that you get that opportunity.

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Image via Amazon

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This movie is also very much an emotional roller coaster. When you first read the script, what did you feel most connected to?

GRANT: It is the classic story of the outsider who gets to go to the ball. This story is in every culture. It’s Cinderella. It just happens to be the boy version. It’s about somebody who is the outcast and that the person who has no chance, but he gets to go to the ball and he wins, and anybody who’s felt disenfranchised or not seen or understood or culturally isolated can connect to that. One of the great delights of the script, which I hope comes across in the movie version, is that there’s incredible diversity, inclusivity, and above all, tolerance. Just coming out of the Trump years and us dealing here with the fallout of Brexit, tolerance seems to be in short supply. That feeling that you can be anything that you want to be, love who you want to, and follow and believe in who you want to, that’s to be celebrated and cherished. I love that about it.

This entire movie really depends on the audience connecting with and loving Jamie, and that’s a lot to put on a young actor who’s leading a film. What was it like to work with Max Harwood? How was he as a scene partner? What do you think about the way he navigated everything?

GRANT: I think he’s extraordinarily talented. He was open and vulnerable. He was incredibly well-prepared. He worked really hard, and he just came with the best possible attitude of being open-hearted and all-embracing. Everybody fell in love with him and I thought, “Well, if he has this effect on a crew of people, that will transmit on screen,” and from the bits I’ve seen of it, it really does.

What was it like to take on drag, to figure out the drag persona, and decide on the look for your drag character? It’s fabulous to watch, but there is a lot that goes into it.

GRANT: Oh, yeah. Thank you. It took a small village. I had a dance coach, an accent coach, a hair and makeup designer, and a costume designer. I watched 11 seasons of RuPaul’s Drag Race for three weeks, to try to get myself into drag school. I’d never seen drag in my life before. I had a singing teacher, and I spent a lot of time with this English drag artist, called David Hoyle, who had this enormous melancholy, vulnerability and loneliness about him that I thought was absolutely right for Hugo, until he rediscovered his lost youth. He reignites this passion for life and reinvention, by becoming the unexpected mentor for this teenage boy. I relied on a huge team of people. It felt like an old Ferrari pulling into their Monte-Carlo pit stop. Suddenly, you have 60 seconds and you’ve gotta change the tires and the oil and everything, and then you’re sent off again. It felt like a speeded up version of what took about two months to find the right look and the right wig. I finally settled for this wig. As RuPaul says, “The higher the wig, the closer you are to God.” I went for the biggest one that I could get and prayed that it would work.

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Image via Amazon

How well did you take to the heels?

GRANT: It was agony. When they’re eight inches high, and you’re tucked, and you’re in a wig and the corset and a double D bra, I am in awe of any woman that can manage to get all of that together, and then still go to work.

Throughout the process of your transformation into the drag character, did you have a moment where you felt like you had really found her and you became confident in the drag of it all?

GRANT: The first time I was in full drag, I rehearsed with the drag queens Anna Phylactic, Son of a Tutu and Myra Dubois, they were throwing shade and being sassy. I thought, “I’m never gonna be able to do this.” I kept thinking about RuPaul’s Drag Race. But the moment I had all this stuff on, it’s like wearing armor. I started throwing shade and they said, “Aha, your inner drag queen is coming out.” So, I did have fun.

Is there something that you found most fun about drag that surprised you?

GRANT: Yeah, once you’ve got it all on and you’re six foot eight tall, as I was, you can literally kick ass because you have such authority and it’s like having armor. You can say stuff that you wouldn’t dream of or dare to say in real life. I enjoyed that.

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Image via Amazon

This film also marks your first experience with recording vocals in a recording studio. What was that like to do?

GRANT: I had a good singing teacher and a very patient musical director. They gave me confidence and they gave me many takes to do it until they felt that it was right. I’m acutely self-critical, so I kept saying to them, “I think you should dub me. You should get a proper singer to do this.”

What’s it like for you to get to be a part of not only one really cool club, but two, with roles in both the Star Wars universe and the Marvel universe? How does it feel to get to be a part of projects like those? Do you just feel like a big kid?

GRANT: It does feel like a big kid moment, especially on Star Wars because I’d followed it since I was 20 years old, as a theater student in 1977. So, to be playing General Pryde in the final installment of the Skywalker story (Star Wars: Episode IX - The Rise of Skywalker) seemed like an out of body experience. I was so thrilled to be on those sets and to see the Stormtroopers and things exploding in all directions. With Loki, they didn’t give me a muscle suit, like the Jack Kirby drawings. I needed the muscles. They said, “No, no, no, it’s all in the magic. You don’t need that.” So, I felt very vulnerable in that costume. My father said to me, in my early 20s before he’d died, “Do you really wanna be a professional actor and risk not earning a living and have to spend your life in makeup and tights?” I said, “There are very few parts that men have to wear makeup, and even fewer when you have to wear tights.” And here I am, playing Loco Chanelle in tight and Old Loki in tights, so I stand corrected.

With the Hudson Hawk hitting its 30th anniversary this year, what do you remember about your time making that movie? How was your experience playing that character?

GRANT: I have remained friends with the person that I played husband to, Sandra Bernhard, for 30 years. That is the best outcome of working on that car crash of a movie.

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Image via Amazon

Does it feel crazy that it was 30 years ago?

GRANT: Oh, 30 years is not enough time. I wish it was a hundred years ago. I was absolutely convinced I would never work again, ever.

Do you know what you’re going to be doing next?

GRANT: I’ve just finished doing the new Jane Austen Persuasion that’s been made for Netflix, with Dakota Johnson and Cosmo Jarvis. That comes out next Easter.

What was that like to do?

GRANT: Well, I play a guy called Sir Walter Elliot, who is the vainest man in all of English literature. His narcissism knows no bounds, which is innately hilarious to me. I had a ball doing it. And Dakota was such good fun to be around. I loved her.

Do you have a type of project you’d still like the opportunity to do?

GRANT: Yes, I’d like to have a muscle suit in whatever future Marvel job I get because I was born without any.

Everybody’s Talking About Jamie is available to stream at Amazon Prime Video.